Lawyers for a death row inmate set to be executed next month will seek DNA testing under a recent Texas law.

A motion filed Thursday in Montgomery County by the New York-based Innocence Project requests testing of crime scene evidence to support Larry Swearingen's claims of innocence for the 1999 murder of 19-year-old college student Melissa Trotter. Swearingen is scheduled to be executed on Feb. 27.

The motion follows a 2011 Texas law that provides the right to conduct testing on any crime scene that can yield evidence of innocence.

"The Texas Legislature has made it clear that DNA testing should be allowed when there is a possibility it could help prove innocence, and the testing Mr. Swearingen is seeking could shed light on many unanswered questions in this case," said Barry Scheck, co-director of the Innocence Project.

Swearingen was convicted in 2000 in Trotter's death and since filed three unsuccessful motions for DNA testing. In 2010, he was denied by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, prompting the 2011 law that directly addressed the interpretation of the previous statute, according to the motion.

The evidence he is seeking to test includes the ligature used to strangle the woman, fingernail scrapings, items of the clothing that were apparently bunched and torn by her killer, cigarette butts found near the body, and torn panty hose found in the trash outside Swearingen's home.

Trotter's body was discovered on Jan. 2, 1999, in Sam Houston National Forest in Montgomery County with a partial pantyhose around her neck.

Swearingen, 41, has been spared from lethal injection three times after being granted stays of execution.